In the same way that having extra eyesin unusual places can be unnerving, a creature with extra mouths can also be horrific, in a different way. The mouth is the organ of consumption, so a creature can be given extra mouths to show that it is a ravenous, hungry monstrosity. A massive paunch and lack of other sensory organs will create the image of an organism with no intelligence or purpose other than to eat.

To enhance the effect of the mouths, they may be equipped with More Teeth than the Osmond Family, or alternatively, might be gross and wide orifices with a thick tongue and smacking lips.

But there are many other ways to add mouths, and many places. They can be obvious or discreet, even hidden. They may even have special properties or powers. Their owner can be an Eldritch Abomination or a seemingly-normal human, or anything in between.

Examples:

open/close all folders

Anime & Manga

Deidara in Naruto has mouths on his palms. They appear to be the result of the Stone Village's kinjutsu, which allows him to infuse chakra into molding clay. By combining this with his Explosion release, he can make explosive clay sculptures of various shapes and sizes. He also has a massive sealed mouth on his chest; feeding clay to that turns his own body into a powerful explosive.

In Slayers, Copy Rezo has two extra mouths, which is explained in the novels as being a result of also being a chimera (he's a hybrid of Rezo-clone and Mazoku). These mouths are used to utter incantations, though, not to eat or bite. The location of them differs.

Vampire Hunter D. The title character has some sort of parasite that manifests as a face in the palm of his left hand, which has strange, undefined magical powers, most notably the ability to suck in large amounts of material or magical energy at will, which can be used to nullify spells and revive D if he gets killed. It has a mind of its own and can talk to D.

In the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, the true forms of Father and Pride are shadow tentacle monsters made up of eyes and mouths. Gluttony can also go One-Winged Angel, opening his fake Gate of Truth in the form of one large mouth down the middle that spits a beam that teleports anything into his "stomach".

In Tokyo Ghoul, Noro and Eto both have kagune with mouths growing out of them. Eto's kagune mouths are capable of speech, and tend to engage in random chatter while she's terrorizing her victims. After devouring Eto's kakuja, Kaneki develops kagune with the same properties.

As you might expect, some of the monsters in Berserk are designed in this direction.

Zygarde Complete Forme from Pokémon has a functioning mouth at the end of each of its four wings, tail and body (think Belly Mouth, only slightly higher).

Card Games

The All-Devouring Oni in Magic: The Gathering's Kamigawa storyline was this taken to its logical extreme: a swarming cloud of mouths with dagger-like teeth.

In Turn Coat, the horde of demonic entities conjured up by Binder appear roughly human-like, but have mouths in both palms that drool disgusting, caustic saliva.

Darren Shan's The Demonata has Artery, one of Lord Loss's familiar demons, who has mouths in his palms, with very sharp teeth in them.

In Wayne Barlowe's Expedition, the gigantic creatures called sea striders have mouths in the bottoms of their feet, allowing them to gulp down mouthfuls of the Amoebic Sea just by walking about.

Betelgeusians in the Star Trek Novel Verse have two mouths; a beak-like one for speaking with, and a toothy one for eating with. As might be apparent from the description, they're not intended to be frightening or disgusting, just alien.

The harum-sacrum of the Great Ship universe have two mouths, one on top of the other. One is connected to their lungs and is used for breathing and talking, while the other links to digestive system. They aren't particularly evil, but do have a reputation for believing in might makes right.

Masters of Horror Episode Imprint deals with a Futaguchi Onna in the person of the prostitute in medieval Japan. is implied to be consequence of imbreeding.

Myths & Religion

The Japanese Youkai Futaguchi Onna (two-mouthed woman) appears as a normal woman with a huge, constantly hungry mouth on the back of her head. Usually the normal mouth rarely eats, while the other one often gorge itself on anything in sight and can use the hair as tentacles.

The Gibbering Mouther is an amorphous aberration covered in mouths and eyeballs, capable of spewing streams of acid, turning the ground around it to a fluid morass, draining blood with its bite attack, and hitting everyone nearby with a confusion effect thanks to its constant insane gibbering.

Dalmosh is a unique evil outsider that looks like a gargantuan humanoid with one gaping maw and a lumpen body covered in spiked scars. Every time an attack deals at least twenty points of damage, the injury tears into a new mouth that can immediately bite back at his attacker.

Dreamlands. The Maws of Pandemonium spell caused the victim's body to sprout a red-lipped mouth that gibbered and moaned as it drained the victim's magic points. When the victim became unconscious, the mouth fell silent, but started howling again two to 12 hours later.

When the Great Old One Y'golonac possesses a human body, the body has mouths in its palms the same as in the original Ramsay Campbell stories.

Aku-Shin Kage, one of the masks of Nyarlathotep. Dressed in the traditional armor of a samurai, where its face should be is covered in mouths instead.

A common mutation among the daemons and followers of Chaos in Warhammer, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. A classic variant of the Great Unclean One, Greater Daemon of Nurgle, has a giant mouth in its stomach as well as the regular one on its face (and quite often one on the end of its tongue, or of each of its tongues, too. Occasionally on the tips of its fingers, or elsewhere). Flamers of Tzeentch have many gibbering mouths about their bizarre fungoid anatomy, all of them leaking warpfire.

Video Games

In Spore, the creature creator allows many mouths to be affixed to a given creature. The abilities provided by mouths don't stack so the main reason for this trope is aesthetics. There is one practical application for multiple mouths with omnivores. They have one mouth with the highest Bite rating and one mouth with the highest Sing rating. Placing both types on the creature gives them both abilities at max level.

An example is seen here with this creation. This creature has mouths and faces all over its body (tail, belly, legs, feet, etc...). Strangely, its main head is on one of its feet. As the creature evolves, some heads die, including its original small human head (which was killed by its own feet), but more form, including its torso’s head, which is actually located on what was once the belly (Cephalothorax). Mouths can also detach and form their own creatures.

Yogg-Saron, "The Beast with a Thousand Maws" from World of Warcraft, who has mouths in place of his nostrils, eyes, and other places where you wouldn't expect an orifice. Those are just the ones you can see.

The monsters in Dante's Inferno, appropriately called Gluttons and appearing in the circle of Gluttony, have mouths for hands. The boss of Gluttony, Cerberus, is a giant toad-like creature with three worm-like tongues, all decorated with extra mouths.

Mawile is based on the Futakuchi-Onna (see above) and has an extra giant mouth as one of its horns. Mega Mawile gets two of these.

Hydreigon has a mouth where it normally would have one, with heads at the ends of each arm which have their own mouths too. They each apparently have the appetites of a normal Pokémon.

Guzzlord has a mouth at the back of its throat. It seems to either be a portal to another realm or a case of Alien Geometries, as this second mouth is on the inside back of the creature but it has no hole in its back.

Triface in Final Fantasy VIII has two large mouth-like appendages on its shoulders. They can bite and spit poison as though they were actual mouths, though only the central mouth can digest food.

One of the many possible forms of the Void Walker from Nexus Clash is a human figure covered head to toe in fanged, whispering mouths. Worse when one considers that the Void Walker can't possibly have enough jawbones for them all.

Chattur'gha in Eternal Darkness refers to its "many mouths" when it talks about how it will destroy Ulyaoth.

Web Comics

Demon Eater has the titular character join the Human Club, those creatures of his world who for one reason or another wish to emulate humans, but none does it well. The one named Venus has extra eyes and mouths so that she has faces on her left and right profiles.

Heroes Save The World: One of the characters, Simon Martin, is able to see how someone is able to die by touching them. His first attempt at this gives him a vision of what he later refers to as "Giger trees," some of which are suffering from this.

On Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, the president of the galaxy has two mouths, one atop the other. Her whole race has this trait, but she's the most frequently seen.

Teen Titans: in the episode "Fear, Itself" The monster that Raven created with her mind has mouths all over its body.

On Steven Universe, Garnet, Pearl and Amethyst's fused form Alexandrite has a second mouth that opens at the base of her chin.

Real Life

Mistaken for played straight in one case: The Cambrian sea creature Hallucigenia was first reconstructed with seven tentacles on its back, each bearing a small, beak-like mouth. But as Science Marches On, it turned out that said tentacles were actually paired legs and the beaks their claws. Up to date, there was still no Hallucigenia fossil found that shows where the creature's mouth was really located.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy